By LIZ ROBBINS

Published: June 20, 2006

In 10 seconds on Sunday night, the N.B.A. finals bounced between two truths, the ones that Pat Riley once coined as winning and misery.

In those final seconds of overtime -- compressed to the last 1.9 seconds -- a Game 5 classic swung from one team to the other, with the Miami Heat benefiting from Dwyane Wade's superstar status and the staggering Dallas Mavericks heading toward a postgame diatribe.

Wade supplied the game's final two points from the free-throw line, after a whisper of a foul by Dirk Nowitzki, a call the Mavericks will not easily forget. The two foul shots by Wade, the second after an inadvertent timeout called by Dallas's Josh Howard, gave the Heat a 101-100 victory and a 3-2 series lead.

And after the Heat exhaled and the Mavericks erupted, there was Riley in the American Airlines Arena, grinning and holding the Larry O'Brien trophy in the palm of his hand.

Or rather, it was a picture of the championship trophy that Riley, the Heat coach, had printed on a laminated playing card. Riley distributed the cards to his players for the playoffs, with the team-bonding slogan, 15 Strong, on the back.

After years of unfulfilled mottos and motivational tactics, Riley finds himself one victory from his first championship since coaching the Los Angeles Lakers to a title in 1988, the season before the Heat joined the league.

Wade was 6 then. At 24, he is carrying Riley, Shaquille O'Neal and the rest of the Heat franchise into Tuesday's Game 6 in Dallas with preternatural poise. ''I'd much rather go down there this way, one game away from the championship, instead of having to win two in a row,'' Riley said Sunday night. ''Now it's our job to go into a very hostile environment and do something this franchise has never done.''

The Mavericks have never done it either, and that inexperience showed in Dallas's three defeats in Miami. With the Mavericks reserve Jerry Stackhouse suspended for Game 5 for his flagrant foul on O'Neal in Game 4, Nowitzki needed to dominate. Instead, for much of Sunday's game, Nowitzki, the third-place finisher for the league Most Valuable Player award, was the third-best player on his team, behind Jason Terry and Howard.

But Nowitzki made amends in the final minutes. And when he let go of a fadeaway jumper over O'Neal that dropped with 9.1 seconds left in overtime to give the Mavericks a 1-point lead, it seemed he had delivered the final blow of the night.

He had not. Wade gathered the inbounds pass, dribbled between two defenders and missed a layup. But he drew a foul on Nowitzki, although replays appeared to show only minor contact.

''I thought Dwyane pushed off like three guys to get to the basket and I saw him come running at me,'' Nowitzki said. ''I kind of thought I went out of the way and they gave him the call.''

By that point, Wade had already gone to the free-throw line 23 times. Nowitzki said Wade's aggressiveness caused the referees to anticipate contact.

''He gets to the line a lot,'' said Nowitzki, who was fined $5,000 yesterday for kicking the ball into the stands in frustration after the game. ''You know, he's been doing this all playoffs long, and you've got to give him credit.''

Before this series, Nowitzki was the one aggressively driving to the basket. But he has gone to the line only 47 times in this series, compared with 76 for Wade.

When talking about his final drive Sunday, Wade said: ''Didn't want to settle for a pull-up jumper. Wanted to go the basket, either hit it or make the foul.''

Wade was 21 for 25 from the line, an N.B.A. finals record for converted free throws. Wade's numbers at the line Sunday matched Dallas's numbers as a team.

Of course, the Mavericks' owner, Mark Cuban, and the team's coach, Avery Johnson, did not think it was a coincidence. They suggested after Stackhouse's suspension that the league favored certain players, like Wade, who scored 43 points in Game 5, 17 in the fourth quarter.

Terry said, ''To come down to the last play, for it to be won or lost on a foul call, is just disappointing, disheartening.''

The Mavericks compounded the problem with a miscommunication. Johnson said he signaled to Howard to call a timeout after Wade's second free throw; that would have enabled the Mavericks to inbound the ball at halfcourt on their final possession.

Instead, Howard asked for a timeout after the first foul shot, leaving the Mavericks without timeouts. Instead of a set play, the Mavericks settled for a halfcourt shot by Devin Harris that missed. Howard admitted he had made the timeout signal, but said he was not looking at the referees. The referee crew chief, Joe Crawford, said it was Howard's mistake.

''Josh Howard goes to Joe DeRosa and not only once, but twice asks for a timeout,'' Crawford said. ''Forced to call it, simple as that.''

Before Wade's final foul shots, there was the 37-year-old Gary Payton, who made a left-handed layup that hit high off the backboard before dropping in for a 1-point Miami lead. Nowitzki answered. Then Wade slammed shut the airplane door to Dallas.

The Mavericks, who won the first two games at home, said they had to regroup in a hurry.

''We got embarrassed here,'' Nowitzki said. ''They suspended one of our players. So obviously, we already were pretty mad. I thought we responded. We were in the game, we had our chances. Now we go home and have to have the same attitude and we'll see what happens.''

Photo: Miami's Dwyane Wade scored 43 points in Game 5, but the last two bothered the Mavericks the most. (Photo by Larry W. Smith/European Pressphoto Agency)